Were you nervous during your first overnight burn?

At first, yes I was nervous every night, and that nervousness probably had my burning incorrectly (small fires), and dirtying up the Chimney....now I throw in some splits, stay with it a while, regulate it, then off to bed.....but there are still sometimes during a reload, she really starts burning like a blow torch....the ol' nervousness rushes back into me, and I stay with it a little longer

Our stove is in the basement of our split level. Did a lot of up and down at night starting out. Glad I did, as a few mistakes were made. Experience,a timer, 2 fire alarms in the stove room, and wisdom learned here have me sleeping soundly.

Pdog said:

At least I'm not alone.

It may be a little different if we didn't have 2 little ones as well.

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The hearthgate helps me to sleep better. My little guys go straight for the fireplace as soon as they get up, so knowing that the protection is fastened to the wall helps. That being said, the first couple nights I was up a few times checking on the fire. It's a respectful reservation. It keeps you diligent. As long as you know you have recently cleaned your chimney, you have a sound install, you are respectful of all necessary clearances and you have had successful long burns during the day. Like Dixie said, it's the same thing as when you burned those long burns during the day. You'll do fine. Enjoy the long burn times of that fantastic, beautiful heating machine you purchased.

Pdog said:

I have yet to do an overnight burn in my Jotul 550 while sleeping in the bedroom. I generally stay up and time my reload so I go to sleep when I am basically down to a hot bed. Some cold nights here in NJ the next few days (-4 tonight)

When Sandy came thru last year, we had 4 overnight burns, but I slept on the couch in the family room to maintain to keep and eye on it (but the insert kept the house toasty). Loaded her up before I left for work to keep the family warm, then reloaded when I returned.

Anyway, was anyone nervous the first time leaving an unattended fire burning while you slept in your bedroom? We have smoke detectors, and I am sure leaving your house with a fire going would feel even worse.

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Yes, as a new burner, I am still trying to find that balance between worrying enough but not too much. I like to see all or most of the wood gases burned up and mostly be in the ember stage before going to bed.

I've been burning 24/7 during the winters for the last 25+ years. The only reason why I get a good night sleep is because I've always done my own installations. And if you can't trust your own installs, it is time for you to put out that match and crank up the old thermostat. Sleep tight!

I was just nervous period! The first year I pretty much cleaned the stainless off my pipe cause I was so worried about a chimney fire. And the first year I had crap wood, really crap wood. After seeing no more than a half a cup full of dust and a clean pipe, I said to hell with it loaded it up and slept like a baby.

Now I worry about over fire cause my wood is so dry and it really takes off. I will, hopefully, not turn my back on it and not respect it.

Pdog said:

Anyway, was anyone nervous the first time leaving an unattended fire burning while you slept in your bedroom? We have smoke detectors, and I am sure leaving your house with a fire going would feel even worse.

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It's good that you worry, although it would be better if you can just channel that nervous energy into cleaning your chimney regularly. That's where most people seem to relax too much. Make sure your install is up to code, keep your chimney clean, and you can sleep like a baby.

PDOG - I am also from Central Jersey! My first overnight burn with my Cat stove was in 1989 so dont remember much that over night.
The scary part looking back now was that I had a slammer install method. That being a short flex pipe stuffed up 2 feet into the 12x12 chimney.
After many years of scary creosote problems and smoke problems I I did the ss liner and block off plate and much better sleeping now not having to worry as much over night.
My stove also burns 24-7 except for that 70 degree sunday few weeks back. It is 5 degrees this morning and my stove is doing it's thing

I think we all were at one time but after a learning curve and lots of reading here I feel plenty safe going to bed last night the 30 was pushing 800 when I went o bed. I did get up and take a look and adjust the fans because I had a great load going.

I have said it before -I am MUCH more afraid to leave the dryer running than the stove.

BobUrban said:

I think we all were at one time but after a learning curve and lots of reading here I feel plenty safe going to bed last night the 30 was pushing 800 when I went o bed. I did get up and take a look and adjust the fans because I had a great load going.

I have said it before -I am MUCH more afraid to leave the dryer running than the stove.

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Wife will not leave the house with the dryer still running.
She has no problem with the stove going though.

Dryer has an OPEN flame and LINT - try to find something in your home more flammable than dryer lint??? I challenge you that if you do it is safely contained in a cupboard.

My dog has a door of his own and is my biggest worry in a house fire. I also have tripped the fire alarms a few times in my processes with the stove and he hates it - RUNS right out of the house immediately - made me happy to see.

Pdog said:

No doubt, I never go to sleep when the dryer is on. My wife laughs at me sometimes. Call me anal but I am not losing everything due to that. Had a friend many years ago lose his entire house and dog due to a dryer fire.

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Just read this post to the wife, she thought I was being some kind of over the top control freak with the no clothes dryer running at bedtime rule!
As far as houses blowing up, most of the time when you see on the evening news that a house blew up and left a debris field all over the neighborhood not to mention knocking the houses next door off their foundation, it was from a NG or LP leak. Never heard of a fuel oil furnace blowing up. I'm sure it has happened, just never heard of it myself.
To the OP, yup, first night with a fire in the furnace, I must have got up to check things a good half dozen times

Jean-Claude said:

Furnace oil is hard to ignite as a straight liquid. Drop a match into a puddle of furnace oil and a puddle of gasoline and tell me which one exploded. A good example are the older pot burner heaters that vaporize light-weight heating oil to produce heat. You usually lit them by tossing an ignited wad of Kleenex into the pot where it acted as a wick to get combustion going and the vaporizing action started once the combustion chamber got up to temp. Dropping a lit match into the pot usually ended up with a need to try again. What you never did was try to re-ignite a hot burner. It would explode due to fumes. Let it get cold and it was safe.

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I have one of those at the cabin. Wax paper is great for lighting - I only had to relight it once, and I made sure it was stone cold before I did!

It's our first year in the cabin and I still get nervous with both. We've had the oil stove going longer than the woodstove, and it seems happy if we just light it and leave it (not much of a learning curve), so I am more comfortable with it, but still nervous about interactions between flues, CO, etc, not to mention overfires and chimney fires with the woodstove.

We're only there on the weekends so my learning curve is much longer than most! I am a worrier at the best of times, but the more info I can get, the better I feel, which is why Hearth is so great.

I wish someone would invent a glow-in-the-dark thermometer though .

I dabbed glow in the dark paint on my needle point that I used to use when I had sights on my bows. It was old and crustified and doesn't do much good but the idea was good - I think

Note to self, invent heat reactive glow-in-the-dark paint...

I a sure Trijicon could make a nice add on but they might be cost prohibitive.

Yes ... first few nights I slept on the couch and kept waking up every so often to check on the fire . . . and to reload. Ended up way too hot that first night. After a week or so I got used to sleeping in my own bed . . . but truthfully . . . every so often I will be in bed and then get up to check the stove when I think I smell or hear something unusual (most times though it is my own imagination at work.)

Honestly, folks who have not burned before who say they have no worries, concerns or fears worry me the most . . . worry oftenhelps develop good burning habits.

I think everyone had a few nights of less than perfect sleep when burning their first fires.
The worst is the first time going to work with a full load up to blaze, and even with the air cut all the way back, I pictured driving back home to pull up the driveway to a burnt down house.
What a relief it was to pull up and see the house still standing, with only wisps of clear waves coming out the cap.

It is all second nature now, but I always double check the insert, the air lever setting and habitually look up a the stack before I pull out the drive.
A slight uneasiness about some things is never a bad thing. It is when we become complacent that shat happens. For me this goes for burning & riding my hawg.
Never lose respect for dangerous things is how I tend to be.

I coudn't sleep much the first few nights despite double checking before bed and getting up every hour thereafter to check on it. Preparation (smoke alarms, CO monitor, long burn testing) and having a solid install helped as well as getting to know my stoves better. Eventually I learned to trust and sleep better. Good topic OP.

I just noticed all the stoves in your sig Burner, very appropriate user name!

Yes, good topic OP, I'll go one further though, good site Hearth! It's nice when your have somewhere you can go and feel normal...

It's kinda like that old joke, "I may be off in my own little world, but it's OK, they all know me there!

firefighterjake said:

Honestly, folks who have not burned before who say they have no worries, concerns or fears worry me the most . . . worry often helps develop good burning habits.

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Having lived in houses with wood burning appliances most of my life, and knowing many of them were likely not up to any codes or standards that we have today, I can honestly say I never had any worries with my most recent, and current, wood stove, which I installed myself and had W.E.T.T. inspected for insurance reasons. That is not to say I didn't check things out during the first few fires, but once I could see, and feel, that it was all working as it should I never felt any more uncomfortable with it then my coffee maker, or my hot water tank, or leaving the oven on when leaving the house, or the actual wiring in my house, or,,,, etc...
Providing everything is installed correctly and up to code, and your chimney is clean, and you don't stack your wood too close to the stove or something stupid like that, the main worry people seem to have is over firing the stove. (Operating it above the designed operating limits). But how big a concern is that?
Most wood stoves, I believe, are designed to "contain" an over fire situation well beyond the operating range they are designed to be operated in. This means that even if you do over fire a stove, it's not going to burn your house down. You might warp your stove, or even crack a weld, and you'll definitely cause premature wear on the insides (burn tubes, cat, etc...) especially if you make a habit of it, but actually catching the house on fire because of operating beyond the working parameters is something I've never heard of that happening with modern wood stoves. But I could be wrong.
Perhaps you could chime in on that Jake. Being a firefighter, how many house fires have you been to that could be attributed directly too getting the wood stove too hot? I'm not talking about chimney fires from creosote, or fires started by leaving stuff to close to the wood stove. I mean how many cases of house fires do you know of that were started by modern wood stoves that were installed up to code, but simply operated above their designed operating parameters?